Well if the truth be known when I started playing guitar at 18, in response to my pa's death, and I left home, there was really not a scene as we know it today...I did in fact busk for the first year in the universities in their common areas in the cold months and anywhere at all when it was warm. Didn't know I was busking as I was an oblivious teenager in love with his guitar filling in a void in my life...just sittin' where ever with the case open. Then from '66-'69 when they lowered the stop thinking/drinking age /age of consent to 18/19 depending on province, there was a surge of 1 nite a week coffee houses from Thurs-Sat., an average of 5 a nite in this city, I played there and was getting $20.00 per set plus cab fare. Believe it or not, now-a-daze you only get $25.00 per set playin in the bars, and no cab fare..not a great cost of living adjustment over 40 years I'd have to say. But in '66 bux when our dollar was higher on average than it is today I was living hi on the hog as a 1 bedroom apt. place cost me $60.00 a month then...One nites work at 3 coffee houses. I continued in this vein till '69 when they all disappeared in response to the fact that the girls preferred booze over pot  and at 16 with make up and forged ID could get into the bars way easy and guess what...the boys followed..well not me..I wasn't yet an alcholic till after my first major heart break in '70. But suffice it to say my music did not sell booze and I became a veritable out cast as I didn't drink/didn't believe people should....Ah but I was so much older then.....struggled with the oxymoron Music Business till '77 when I could no longer reconcile both words in the same sentence and started mainly playing self promoted shows with no booze and active brains..I am a lyric wtiter and wanted my words heard, and not thru an alcholic haze.Truth to tell my music wouldn't work in bars back the anyway. Now I mainly give it away and do the odd gig which feeds my performace demon and pays, usually cab fare...LOL
I did a busker thing with my "Acme Brand Jug Band" in 1988 at the first Winnipeg Buskers Festival but am not big on breathing what passes for air on streets busy enough to generate a viable audience,, so didn't continue and went back to my originals.
So today ish UI do mainly house concerts and love 'em as I am a living room performer at heart...love the intimacy of being able to look everyone in the audience in the eye.
So now we're up to date...sorry If I was a bit over long but I felt I hadda really let y know who I am in real life. heh heh heh.. ...

 

Once in a while I look around,
I see a sound
and try to write it down
Sometimes they come out very soft
Tinkling light sound
The Sun comes up again